


A Hollow Grave

by TheDragonofHouseMormont



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Auror Harry Potter, Auror Ron Weasley, Demons, Necromancy, Rituals, Sleepy Hollow AU, Tom Riddle is His Own Warning, grindelwald's war went on for several more years because he got involved in some dark shit, inspired by season 1 of the 2013 series and only season 1 because i haven't seen any other seasons, not a no voldemort au as much as a 'voldemort never got the chance to rise' au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:07:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26993395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDragonofHouseMormont/pseuds/TheDragonofHouseMormont
Summary: Albus Dumbledore has been murdered, and the only suspect is a mysterious man claiming to be from fifty years in the past.| a sleepy hollow au
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle, Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort
Comments: 12
Kudos: 41





	1. somebody showed you all of the horror

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title is from white dove by koda

The halls at Hogwarts had never seemed so gray. Even at dusk in the winter, with cloudy skies and little light, the halls still seemed joyful, lively. As Harry walked down them now, it felt as if all that life had been muted. He didn’t wonder at it; the cause was obvious. He stared straight ahead at the gargoyle in front of him, waiting patiently.

“Peppermint toad,” Deputy Headmistress McGonagall said at his side, voice quieter than he ever remembered it. Interim Headmistress now, he supposed, effective immediately. The gargoyle moved, and she led the way up the stairs to the Headmaster’s office.

Harry remembered the first time he’d walked up these stairs. It had happened when he was a second year, and he’d made the mistake of telling Ron about the scar on his forehead where others could hear. Malfoy had called him crazy, and so Harry had punched his cheekbone. Professor Snape had immediately taken him to Dumbledore’s office, probably in an attempt to get him expelled. Harry had been so angry in the moment, he hadn’t even been afraid of expulsion. But to Harry’s surprise, Dumbledore didn’t punish him. Instead, he spoke in quiet, gentle tones about how many people are afraid of what they don’t understand, and how when they’re afraid they lash out with taunts, with whatever it takes to make that big, scary unknown seem smaller. Harry had understood what he was saying - that most people couldn’t understand what Harry had experienced, and that he shouldn’t take it personally. And maybe, though he still wasn’t sure if this had been Dumbledore’s intention or not, that Harry shouldn’t talk about how he had gotten his scar. So from that day on, he kept it to himself, telling anyone who asked that he had just fallen when he was really little. Malfoy continued to sneer down on him for being so muggle as to punch someone, but he never called Harry crazy again.

He and McGonagall reached the top of the stairs. “Wait here,” he said to her, not unkindly, as he stepped into the office. He let his gaze wander over the books, the portraits of sleeping past headmasters, Fawkes’ vacant perch, and the cold light streaming in through the windows. Finally, he let his eyes fall to the center of the room, to Dumbledore’s desk, and to Dumbledore’s body sitting in his chair.

There wasn’t a head.

Harry stepped closer to the desk, pulling out a notepad and quill. “The cut looks clean and quick,” he said to himself, taking note. “I don’t know that this was done with a wand. A diffindo makes a pretty clean cut when done with a steady hand, but I haven’t heard of it being used for decapitation. I imagine it’s possible, assuming the killer has the magical strength to accomplish it.” That was a detail that bothered him; decapitations weren’t common for a reason. To go through skin and bone like that took strength, whether magical or physical. There were easier ways to kill a person. “It’s possible the killer used a curse I’m not familiar with. Will research later. But why not just use the killing curse?” He paced slowly behind the body, walking to the other side. He looked closer at the cut. ‘Clean’ wasn’t quite the right word, no, this death was nearly spotless. He hadn’t noticed it at first, too caught up in the whole gruesome picture, but there was very little blood for a method of killing that should have been quite messy. It was like the wound had been sealed off, cauterized.

But there was one thing out of place. He peered closer, over the neck, behind it. In the back of the chair was a straight cut, at matching level with the neck. A few splinters were hanging from it, as if something had been yanked from the wood with great force. “This wasn’t done with a wand at all,” he noted. “This was done with a blade.” He backed away from the desk, glancing quickly around the office, but there was no weapon in sight. “Whatever it was, the killer took it with them.”

“Harry!” a voice called from the bottom of the stairs. He noticed McGonagall flinch slightly in his periphery. Another thing he’d never seen her do before. She’d known Dumbledore far longer than him; he couldn’t imagine how awful this must all be to her.

“Can’t you come up here, Ron?” he yelled back.

“Best not,” was the reply.

Harry sighed and cast a quick stasis charm over the body. “I’m coming down,” he announced. Quieter, to McGonagall, he said, “Please wait here, there will be more aurors arriving soon.” Then he cast a quick barrier charm to seal off the room.

Ron was waiting in the hall at the bottom of the stairs, and he wasn’t alone. In his grasp, at wand-point, was a man Harry had never seen before. His clothes were formal, if a bit old-fashioned, and there was a gold ring with a black stone on his right hand. He had dark hair, dark eyes, and looked very, very annoyed.

“I found this man at the edge of the forest, and he isn’t faculty or staff,” Ron explained. “Tried to attack me, but I was quicker.”

“I didn’t try to attack you,” the man snarled. “I was merely caught off guard and being cautious.”

The fact that he was wandering the grounds without good reason was more than suspicious. The school’s wards were powerful. Strangers didn’t tend to just drop by unannounced. “What’s your name?” Harry asked him.

The man tried unsuccessfully to pull from Ron’s grasp. “Tom Riddle.”

“And what are you doing at Hogwarts?”

Riddle stopped struggling as he answered. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Harry repeated, thinking it over. “What were doing before you came here?”

“I was working.”

“Where?”

“Borgin and Burkes.” Riddle, it seemed, did not like giving descriptive answers.

“A new employee?”

At that, Riddle’s face answered first. There was a brief flicker of confusion that Harry had not expected. “No, I’ve worked there for over six years.”

“Well, that’s strange,” Ron said, his wand pushing up under Riddle’s chin. “We raided that place a few weeks back, and there was no Tom Riddle listed as an employee.”

Riddle glared at Ron. “Perhaps your simple mind overlooked it.”

“Okay!” Harry exclaimed before the situation could escalate. “Let’s just take him back to the ministry; we can continue to question him there.”

The Headmaster’s floo had been taken offline to preserve the crime scene, so they’d have to leave the same way they came - by walking to the edge of the wards and apparating.

*

The chairs in the interview room were nothing special, just old wood that got uncomfortable after sitting in them too long, but somehow Riddle looked perfectly at ease sitting across from him and Ron. “Is there a reason why you’re holding me here? I admit that it’s odd to be wandering the forbidden forest, but it’s hardly illegal.”

“You’re right,” Harry told him. “However, a man is dead, so you can see how it looks suspicious.”

Riddle seemed to think about this for a moment. “Who died? Dippet?”

It was Ron who answered, his voice thick with confusion. “Dippet? Do you mean former Headmaster Dippet?”

“Former?”

“Dippet retired decades ago. In fact, he’s been dead for about twelve years now.”

Riddle let out a single, sharp laugh. When Harry and Ron didn’t laugh along, his face cleared of any expression at all. “You must be either joking or mistaken. I suppose you’re about to tell me I went to a school run by a ghost then.”

That couldn’t be right. Harry knew that wizards aged slower than muggles, but there was no way the man sitting in front of him had graduated from Hogwarts more than thirty years ago. The pieces of Mr. Riddle were starting to form a picture that Harry didn’t very much like.

Ron and Riddle had continued to argue while he thought, and he caught the tail end of it. “Just last week there was an entirely _unnecessary_ article in the Prophet praising Dippet for keeping the school safe during these dangerous times.” Riddle didn’t roll his eyes, but Harry got the feeling he wanted to.

Harry cut off whatever either of them was about to say. “What year is it?”

Hesitancy leaked into Riddle’s expression at the sudden question. “Why would you ask that?”

“Just answer it, please.”

“1951.” There wasn’t even the slightest hint of a lie in his voice.

Harry looked at Ron, who stared back at him with a matching uncertainty. He turned his attention back to Riddle. “What happened when you found yourself in the forest?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because it’s 2004.”

At that, Riddle finally looked lost. His jaw clenched like he was holding back a denial. No one said anything for about two minutes as he thought, and Harry waited. “I. It was like I had been buried alive. I had to dig my way out of some soil, and I found myself in the forest. Wasn’t long after that your partner here stumbled across me.”

Ron tapped Harry’s arm and he nodded, standing up. They both stepped out of the interview room and into the hall. “This isn’t possible,” Ron said.

Harry nodded. “I agree. But he doesn’t seem like he’s lying, either.”

“So he believes what he’s saying, that still doesn’t make it true.”

Ron was right, but Harry didn’t feel ready to dismiss Riddle just yet. “Time-traveler or not, there’s an easy way to determine how involved he might be in all this. Tell the others where in the forest you found him. Riddle may have been there to toss the murder weapon.”

“Murder weapon?”

“Dumbledore wasn’t killed with a wand; his head was cut off with a blade of some sort.”

Ron scrunched his nose. “I don’t even know how to respond to that.” He pulled out his wand. “Right, I’ll go head that search; you can go back in there and deal with the weirdo.”

Riddle’s face was once again clear of any expression when Harry stepped back into the interview room. He sat back down at the table. “As far as I’m aware, there’s never been a case of someone traveling across five decades.”

“You don’t believe me. We live in a magical society.”

“Magic has its limits. Time-turners go back in time, not forward. And even then there’s no record of a jump of this size.” Harry sighed. There was always the chance that the Unspeakables had kept something similar to this from public record, but he didn’t want to ask them and risk them snatching away his suspect.

“I’m not lying,” Riddle said. His voice was softer than it had been. Harry got the impression that he was tired.

“I didn’t say you were. I’m just trying to make it make sense.”

“You’ve essentially told me that when I woke up today, my entire life was gone. Everything I had worked for, everything I had built. This isn’t something I would lie about.”

This line of questioning wasn’t going to get them anywhere. “What did you do at Borgin and Burkes?”

Riddle straightened in his chair. “I acquired rare items for the shop, and convinced wealthy patrons to purchase them.”

“It’s quite a dark shop.”

“We aren’t particular about the nature of many items we sell. A rare and interesting object is rare and interesting, regardless of whether it’s dark or not.”

“Had you always wanted to go into retail?”

“No, I wanted to go into academics. Dippet, however, decided I was too young and inexperienced to be a professor. And I’m sure Dumbledore wasn’t particularly encouraging in the matter.”

Harry placed his arms on the table, as he leaned forward in his seat. “So you knew Professor Dumbledore.”

“Yes, he taught Transfiguration.”

“And you didn’t like him.”

Riddle didn’t answer at first. “He’s the man who died, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“It’s no secret that Dumbledore and I weren’t friendly, that doesn’t mean I wanted to kill him.”

In their whole conversation, it was the first time Harry felt that Riddle was lying to him. “Why didn’t you get along?”

“He didn’t like me. I’d say you should ask him about it, but…”

“Joking about his murder doesn’t look g-”

Riddle interrupted him. “What if I didn’t time travel?” His eyes moved back and for, looking for any genuine answer to his question.

“That’s not exactly a leap, considering how unbelievable it would be if you had.”

“No, I mean, what if I was under some sort of stasis for fifty years?”

Harry thought about it. It was more plausible than time travel, but the amount of power necessary for such a stasis would be immense. “Is there anyone in your life you think would do something like that to you?”

Riddle shook his head as he answered. “The only person I could think of who would be powerful enough, apart from myself, is Dumbledore.”

“Who just so happens to be dead.”

“Coincidence, I’m sure.”

But maybe it wasn’t a coincidence. Assuming Riddle’s guess was right, and assuming Dumbledore was the one who put him in stasis, it would connect at least a couple dots. The timing of the murder and Riddle’s appearance was just too odd to be mere coincidence. “You know this is just adding to your motive, right?”

“I didn’t kill him.”

The worst part was that Harry believed him, which meant there was still a killer on the loose.

*

“There was no weapon found in the woods,” Robards informed him as he returned to the crime scene. Dumbledore’s body had been removed, and that only highlighted the lack of blood. “Still, Mr. Riddle may have shrunk it first to make it harder to find.”

Harry shook his head. “I’m not convinced he’s the killer, sir.”

“What makes you say that?” Robards questioned. “He was found on the premises without good reason, and his alibi is questionable, to put it nicely. ‘I just time-traveled from fifty years in the past’ is a new one, I’ll give him that.”

“It’s just a feeling, sir. There was no love lost between him and Dumbledore, but there’s just. There’s something we’re missing.” Harry walked further into the room, bypassing the desk this time. Two other aurors were at the desk, anyway, examining it for any details he may have missed in his initial, quick assessment. Riddle was suspicious, certainly, but there was still a castle full of potential suspects.

There were cabinets in the back of the office, below the upper level. The space was darker than the rest of the office, with only one narrow window letting in the light. On top of one of the cabinets sat Dumbledore’s wand. Perhaps he had set it down without thinking, not expecting to be ambushed by a murderer. As Harry thought about it, he realized it looked as if Dumbledore hadn’t tried to defend himself at all. Like he’d known what was coming.

He pulled open the first few cabinets. They were filled with student files going back decades, at least as far as the beginning of Dumbledore’s tenure, if not earlier. The next few opened up to reveal old meeting minutes, policy changes, and teacher files. Any of the teacher and student files could be helpful, as there was the possibility he’d been murdered by a disgruntled employee or angry parent. Or angry student, Harry admitted to himself, though he’d rather that wasn’t the case.

Kneeling down, he had to _alohamora_ the final drawer open. It wasn’t the time to respect anyone’s privacy. Inside were old journals and papers which, on first glance, appeared to all be in Dumbledore’s handwriting. The oldest journal was dated 1945, during the war.

Didn’t Riddle mention something about ‘dangerous times’?

Harry stood back up, facing the room of aurors. “There’s a line of inquiry we haven’t considered yet. Dumbledore was famous for defeating Grindelwald in 1952. What if this is related?”

Robards seemed to consider it. “Fifty years is a long time to wait for revenge.”

“But it’s possible.” Harry shrunk the cabinets to fit them inside the pockets of his robes. “It might even bring us closer to answering-”

A silvery lynx leapt soundlessly into the room. From it emitted Kingsley Shacklebolt’s voice, “Back-up requested at the home of Theseus Scamander. We are under attack.”

“Damn it,” exclaimed Robards. He merely gestured for the rest of them to follow, but even that wasn’t necessary. Harry and the other aurors were already running behind him, desperate to get to the edge of the wards. What seemed like an inconvenience earlier became a series of unending corridors. His heart beat rapidly in his chest as they rushed down the stairs and out onto the grounds.

He had his wand ready once he hit sunlight. In front of him, Robards disapparated, followed by two of the other aurors. In the next second, Harry’s world seemed to tilt on its axis. When his vision reoriented, he was bombarded by the loud crack of a spell being fired.

Theseus Scamander’s house had probably been nice once, maybe even as recently as this morning. Now, furniture had been over turned, one of the curtains looked like it had been set on fire, and the walls were covered in blast marks and holes. The room they were in was oddly dim, and Harry noticed that apart from the one burned curtain, the rest of the curtains had been drawn over the windows.

Tonks ducked behind a display cabinet, and Harry leapt to her side, pointing his wand in the direction she had come from. In the next room stood what must have been a man, for it had the body of one. It was taller than most men, though, with a broad chest and arms, and a neck that ended at midpoint. Headless, though it was, it had no trouble defending itself from the aurors. One of them cast _incarcerous_ , but the headless man swung an axe through the ropes before they even reached him. Another silently cast what Harry suspected to be _bombarda_ , but it seemed to have no effect. The headless man merely stumbled back half a step before pacing toward them.

“What is that thing?” Harry asked Tonks beside him.

“No idea. We got the call that there was an intruder in Scamander’s home.” She straightened up where she stood, rolling back her shoulders. Her hair was an inky black, as if to hide her in the shadows. “We’ve managed to corner it here just after Kingsley sent the patronous, but nothing seems to really affect it.”

Together, they joined the others in the next room. Harry cast _expelliarmus_ , aiming for the axe, but it did nothing. Tonks aimed her wand at a table, throwing the table at the headless intruder. It pushed him back a few feet, and in the motion, Harry saw a bag hanging from his back. The bag swung with his movements, two large objects concealed within.

“We can’t fight it with magic,” Tonks called out to any of the aurors who would listen.

Kingsley threw another piece of furniture at him. Harry guessed that was the method they had used to corner him. The bigger problem was the lack of head. “How do we kill something that’s already dead?” Harry asked, knowing he was just voicing what the others were undoubtedly already thinking.

It was in that moment that Harry’s eyes were drawn to the corner of the room. Another body sat on the floor, no head in sight. It wasn’t wearing aurors robes. He realized it must have been Theseus Scamander; they were too late.

Robards was growing furious. “Why is it so dark in here?” The headless man swung his axe in Robards’ direction. Robards quickly ducked under the blow.

“It was like this when we arrived,” Kingsley responded.

Someone had drawn all the curtains in the middle of the day. Maybe Scamander liked his privacy. But _someone_ had also set one of the curtains in the other room on fire.

Harry had an idea. He ran toward the nearest window, levitating a chair when his path brought him too close to the headless man. He didn’t pause as he heard the crack of an axe hitting the chair, just kept running forward. He grabbed hold of the curtain and pulled as hard as he could, putting his whole body into it. There was a crack where the curtain rod was attached to the wall, and then the curtain came down, Harry dodging the rod just in time.

Sunlight poured into the room. The headless man backed quickly away from the space where the beams of light fell. Harry pointed his wand at a perpendicular wall, setting one of the other curtains on fire. Tonks got the idea, and ran for that wall as well, pulling down the curtain at the next window.

The headless man backed into another adjoining room, Kingsley running after him. Before the others had a chance to follow, Kingsley returned. “He’s gone.”

“What do you mean, he’s gone?” Robards asked.

“I mean that the room is empty. The doors are closed. He had no time to get out. However this thing travels, it just escaped.”

It had only been a few minutes, but Harry felt it was the closest he’d come to death since he was little.

*

Ron was waiting for them at the office when they returned. “Still no sign of a murder weapon on the Hogwarts grounds.”

“Don’t worry,” Robards told him. “We found it.”

Ron looked like wanted to ask. Harry started to tell him when he noticed bright pink on the other side of the room.

“Head Auror Robards,” Senior Undersecretary Dolores Umbridge said with a small, horribly fake smile on her face. “I heard you had a suspect in the murder of Albus Dumbledore, but for some reason he hasn’t been charged yet.”

“Madam Umbridge, the investigation is still currently ongoing.”

“Of course, I know how hard you all work. But I know that _you_ know how important it is for this matter to be resolved as quickly as possible. We don’t need the public to panic.”

Robards looked like he’d rather be speaking with anyone else, and he wasn’t trying to hide it. “With all due respect Madam, this _matter_ has just gotten more complicated. Theseus Scamander has also just been murdered.”

Umbridge’s smile grew vicious at that. “So he has killed _two_ people now, and you still haven’t charged him?”

“Riddle was in custody during the second murder,” Harry blurted. Robards glared at him.

“And?” Umbridge’s eyes fell to him, her expression unchanging. “Potter, right? I understand you come from a muggle background, so it’s understandable that you may not have considered that he committed the second murder through magical means.”

Harry’s jaw clenched. “We don’t even know that he was responsible for Dumbledore’s murder to begin with. There’s reason to believe he isn’t.”

“And what reason is that?”

Ron answered. “He, uh. He says that he arrived here today, from 1951.”

“That clearly isn’t possible,” Umbridge cheerfully declared. “He’s either lying or insane. Either way, he should be escorted to St. Mungo’s for evaluation.” She turned back to Robards. “I want this matter settled by the end of the day. The Daily Prophet will run an article on your success on the front page tomorrow.” She departed without another word.

“She’s right,” Robards conceded. “Either way, Riddle should be sent to St. Mungo’s.”

“I’ll do it, sir,” Harry volunteered before he could give himself time to think on it.

“Alright, be quick about it. I honestly don’t know what to do about this yet. Weasley, with me; I’m going to fill you in on what happened.”

Harry walked past them, to the interview rooms. There was a piece still missing. The war, the year Riddle claimed to come from, the headless killer, the curtains - there was something that connected them all to form a complete picture, but he couldn’t figure out what it was.

When he stepped into the room, Riddle was sitting where they’d left him, as if no time had passed. If only that were the case. He stood up as he saw Harry approach, his cuffed hands held close.

“I’m here to take you to St. Mungo’s,” Harry told him.

“I am not in need of medical attention. And I know you were listening to me earlier.”

Harry grabbed his arm, leading him from the room and through the office. “I’m not saying I believe you, but I’m the closest to it you’re going to get.”

He could feel Riddle’s eyes on him, but didn’t say anything to acknowledge it. Harry walked them past the fireplaces in the Atrium, heading for the visitor exit. Thankfully, Riddle waited until they were stepping out of the phone booth before he tried speaking again. “That means that you need my help.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Why else would you tell me you’re open to believing what I say, if not to get me to talk?”

Harry glanced up at him as they walked. “Maybe I’m just trying to make you feel better.”

“I saw what you were like in that interview room. You have a puzzle, and you’re trying to solve it.”

“You’re right,” he admitted. “There’s something we’re missing, and I think you might be the key to solving it.”

Riddle turned his head to look behind them, before returning his gaze to Harry. “I understand that things might have changed in the last fifty years, evidenced by how tall and shiny everything appears to be now, but isn’t St. Mungo’s that way.” He pointed his chin in the opposite direction from where they were walking.

“It is, that hasn’t changed.”

“So I was right,” he sounded positively gleeful. “You _do_ need my help.”

“Don’t be so smug about it.” Harry glanced around. “We should be far enough away, now. You up for some side-along apparition?”

“I suffered through it earlier just fine, did I not?”

Harry pulled him into an alley and disapparated.

*

They reappeared outside the door to Harry’s flat near Diagon Alley. He led them inside and up the stairs to the living room.

“Will you take these cuffs off?” Riddle held out his bound wrists.

“No.”

“Rude.” Though Riddle didn’t sound particularly offended. Harry walked behind the sofa, and rolled out an old chalkboard. “You have your own chalkboard? How often do you bring work home?”

“Often enough,” Harry responded. There was a reason Ginny broke up with him three years ago, and he hadn’t had another serious relationship since. “So first, we have the murder of Albus Dumbledore.” He looked behind him and saw Riddle settling down on the sofa, before picking up the piece of chalk and writing on the board. “Decapitated in his office, no head or weapon found on the premises, though we can assume, now, that the weapon was an axe. His neck was sealed off - cauterized, maybe - as it was cut, leaving almost no blood at the scene. No signs of struggle. Second is the murder of Theseus Scamander, again decapitated, this time at his home. Scamander was retired. Same sealed wound. One of the curtains had been burned.” He moved the chalk to the center of the board. “Likely killer in both incidents is the headless axeman who attacked Scamander.”

“I’m sorry,” Riddle interrupted. “Did you just say ‘headless’?”

“Yes.”

“And you all claim I’m the crazy one.”

Harry felt the corner of his mouth turn up as he returned to the board. He drew a line from the word ‘axe’ and added ‘magical properties?’. “He’s seemingly impervious to magical attack, but can be deterred by sunlight, if not harmed.” Then, below the headless axeman summary, he wrote ‘Tom Riddle’. “And then there’s you, who claims to have gone to sleep yesterday in 1951, and woken up today in 2004.”

“Your headless axeman could just be an inferius.”

Harry thought about it a moment. “It’s possible, but he didn’t seem without reason. He seemed in control of himself, not just someone else’s puppet. I agree that necromancy must be involved in some way, though.”

Riddle stood up and walked closer to the board. “I’m honestly not sure what to make of all this.” He raised his bound hands and pointed at the list below Scamander’s name. “Why is the curtain an important detail?”

“It’s what gave me the idea about sunlight. All of the curtains at Scamander’s had been closed when we arrived, but one of them had been burned. I thought it might have been intentional, that the axeman’s weakness might be sunlight. I was correct, at least on the second count.”

“Assuming you were correct on the first, as well, that means Scamander _knew_.”

Harry stared up at him, only to find Riddle’s gazed already fixed on him in turn. “I felt that might have been the case with Dumbledore, like he knew his death was coming.”

Riddle shook his head. “I don’t mean that Scamander knew he was about to die, I mean that he knew exactly who his killer was going to be, and exactly how to stop him.” His eyes moved to the board, and then back to Harry. “What’s the connection between them?”

“I’m not sure,” Harry admitted as he paced to the center of the room, pulling the coffee table to the side. “Dumbledore was a celebrated hero for defeating Grindelwald in 1952. Scamander had been an auror for most of the early 20th century. I think at that point he was head of the DMLE.”

“Grindelwald was defeated in 1952?”

“Yeah, you just missed it.”

Riddle didn’t respond. Instead, he picked up the discarded chalk, and wrote the detail below his own column.

“You think it’s important,” Harry asked, reaching into his pockets.

“It’s certainly an interesting coincidence, and today has been full of those.”

Harry nodded. “Then it’s a good thing I haven’t had the chance to enter these into evidence, yet.” He placed the shrunken cabinets from Dumbledore’s office in the center of the room, and cast _engorgio_ to return them to their original size. “They were Dumbledore’s. The one down here,” he knelt down to open it, “contains old journals and writings of his, going back to the war.” He handed Riddle a couple of the journals, and grabbed his own stack to go through. “Just look for any mentions of headless axemen or future murders.”

Riddle actually laughed softly. Harry didn’t know what to do with that.

But it was apparent from the moment Harry opened up one of the journals, dated from 1947, that they offered more information than he could have possibly hoped for. Too much, even. These weren’t the boring journals of a professor, they were details of the war. Details Harry had never even heard of in school. Dumbledore wrote of malevolent beings, demons in the shadows, powers he couldn’t hope to defeat, as he was always one step behind.

“Dumbledore wrote here about joining the effort against Grindelwald.” Riddle had the journal from 1945. “His intention had been to duel Grindelwald to stop him once and for all, but he never got the chance. Grindelwald did something to turn the tide in his favor.”

Harry held up the notebook he was going through. “Looks like two years later, the war was still going badly.” He gazed back down at the writing. “What did Grindelwald do to give himself such an advantage?”

Riddle flipped back and forth through the pages, stopping suddenly on one of them. “There’s mention here of the elder wand.”

“Is that significant?” Harry asked. Elder wasn’t a common wood for wands, but it wasn’t unheard of either.

However, the look Riddle gave him told him he was missing something. “Either children’s stories have changed a good deal since my time, or you didn’t grow up in the wizarding world.”

“I’ll let you figure out which one it is.”

It was unclear if Riddle wanted to push the subject or not, but he continued, “It’s from the Tale of the Three Brothers. In it, three brothers use their magic to evade Death’s reach on a treacherous bridge. Wanting to claim the brothers for his own, Death gives them three gifts, each designed to ensnare the brothers with their own hubris. Legend has it that the elder wand was one of these gifts.”

It sounded to Harry exactly like the kind of story wizards might tell their children. “Why would someone seek out something that Death crafted to kill?”

“Because the elder wand is supposed to be the most powerful wand ever made. And because those who believe that the gifts are real, believe that if one can acquire all three, then one can become the Master of Death. They call them the Deathly Hallows.” Riddle snapped the 1945 journal shut. “I had heard of them in my time, but ruled out searching for them. It seemed like a lot of work for something which, as you pointed out, would ultimately be unreliable at best. There’s no record, at least before 1951, of someone owning all three, likely because whoever managed acquiring one or two, died before they could get to the third.”

“What are the other two?”

“The stone of resurrection, which can call forth any dead person, and the cloak of invisibility, cut from Death’s own cloak. I doubt that one requires any explanation.”

It made Harry think of his own invisibility cloak. It was quite a reliable old heirloom; would one gifted by Death be more powerful somehow? “But the journal only mentioned the elder wand.”

“Correct,” Riddle nodded. “Having the elder wand would certainly give Riddle an advantage, but I doubt it would be by this much. As much as I am loathe to admit it, Dumbledore was quite powerful on his own, and in a war of this magnitude, he would have had whatever resources were available to him for success. And the elder wand is far from infallible. It can’t save you from an ambush, or protect you while you’re asleep. I imagine it’s really only useful in a direct, traditional duel. And even then, there might be other factors that could cause you to lose. He might have gone looking for the other Hallows.”

Harry picked up another journal, one from 1946, and flipped through several pages. “Maybe. I haven’t seen any mention of them yet, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t. All Dumbledore writes about are, well, monsters. Demons. He may have been metaphorical. It’s possible Grindelwald could have struck a deal with some dark creatures, but I expect Dumbledore would have been more direct in that case.”

Riddle sat back down on the sofa, the 1945 journal held loosely in his hands, his gaze forward and unseeing. “What if it wasn’t metaphorical?”

Harry looked down at him. “You think there were actual demons fighting for Grindelwald during the war?”

“The elder wand couldn’t have given him this kind of advantage on its own. However, if he used the immense power of the wand, it’s not inconceivable that he could have summoned something.”

“Demons aren’t real.”

Riddle’s gaze finally fixed on Harry. “You’ve never studied the Dark Arts much, have you?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “My literal job is to catch dark wizards.”

“That only means you’ve studied just enough to know how to counter it. You’ve never studied it as its own art form, never truly felt how it works, never hunted down scraps and rumours of some impossibility made possible.”

“And you have?” One of Harry’s brows rose.

Riddle smirked, and damn if it didn’t suit his face. “I worked at Borgin and Burkes, didn’t I?”

It was an answer and not one at once. On the surface it implied that Riddle learned what he had to, or naturally would, when coming into frequent contact with potentially cursed and dark objects. But it also implied that there was a particular type of person who would work at a place like Borgin and Burkes, and Riddle fit that model. Harry fell onto the seat beside him, sinking into the cushions, the events of the day settling into his bones. He was trying to find answers with a man he didn’t really know, a man who had crawled from the soil just that morning. “You said, earlier, that you thought Dumbledore was the only person you knew who was powerful enough to put you in stasis. Maybe these journals can confirm that guess.” He didn’t know what else to say about demons. He’d faced off against a headless axeman earlier, so the concept of what was and wasn’t real had become a bit more flexible than usual. He’d deal with it later.

Riddle reached down to the stack Harry had been going through, picking up several journals, and then dropping all but one. It was dated 1951. He opened a few pages in. “Well, that’s a horrifically detailed description of a decapitated body.”

Harry leaned into his arm, trying to get a look at the page, but Riddle pulled the book away, smiling down on him. “Are you joking?”

“Actually, I’m not,” Riddle replied, bringing the journal back down. “It really is quite awful.” He skimmed through several more pages. “Apparently, there had been a series of beheadings connected to the war. Disappearances throughout Europe. I don’t remember any of this in the news. Maybe they tried to keep it out of the papers.” He folded the journal closed over his thumb, and turned to Harry. “You believe me. You believe that I’m from the past.” It was phrased as a statement of fact. The meaning of Harry’s suggestion must have just sunk in. “Everyone else seems to think I’m delusional at best. Why do you believe me?”

Memories from a night twenty years ago flooded Harry’s mind. “I was four when my parents were killed. The authorities arrested my godfather for it, but I knew it wasn’t him. I saw.” He swallowed, staring at his knees. “I saw something that night, something no one could explain. So, no one believed me. I just. I know what it’s like to be thought of as crazy.”

“Then I shall endeavour to prove your belief in me correct.” He opened it again, flipping through more pages. Pausing on one of them, he moved the journal between them, so Harry could see the words.

Dumbledore described a soldier who fought for Grindelwald’s side. This soldier’s face was always hidden beneath a black, leather mask, a mask that covered every inch, including his eyes. He was ruthless, seemingly forgoing a wand in favour of an axe. No spell had managed to take him down, and all they’d managed was to stall him long enough to escape. “I guess our headless axeman wasn’t always so headless.”

“I guess not,” Riddle agreed. They flipped through more pages, getting closer and closer to the end of the year, until Riddle suddenly held a page in place. “It’s my name.”

He was right. The page detailed a ritual intended to bind the mysterious axeman to another wizard. If one slept, the other slept. If one died, the other died. _Tom Riddle is the best candidate,_ Dumbledore had written. He had considered the odds, and felt that, not only would the ritual remove the axeman from the battlefield, but should he rise again at some future point, then Riddle’s power could be useful. There were mentions of Scamander helping in the ritual.

“I guess that explains why the axeman went after Theseus Scamander,” Harry said. “It makes sense, I suppose. As Head of the DMLE, and Head Auror before that, he would have been involved in the effort to stop Grindelwald.”

“Yes, I agree that he would have been heavily involved. However, the Scamander mentioned on this page here,” Riddle pointed to a piece of text, “Is referred to as ‘she’. Do you know of a female Scamander who would have been involved at the time as well?”

Harry ran through his knowledge of the Scamander family. “Newt Scamander married an American auror. She settled with him in Britain after the war. Tina Scamander.” He shot to his feet, knowing what that meant.

Riddle stood up, too, towering over Harry. “Then the headless axeman will be after her next.”

Harry swiped his fingers through his hair, messing it up beyond it’s already likely abysmal state. He waved his wand, removing Riddle’s cuffs. “Okay. We have to go.” He turned and headed for the door, only to be halted by Riddle’s hand on his arm.

“We can’t just _go_ , we need a plan!”

“We don’t have time for that! If we’re lucky, we’ve figured this out in time to get there before he does.”

Riddle pointed to the window, where dusk was settling in outside. “You said that his weakness was sunlight. It’s nearly nighttime, which means that, lucky or not, we have no idea what to do if we have to confront him.”

Harry’s struggle to pull free was futile. “Muggles invented these things called UV lights, they can simulate sunlight.”

Riddle’s grip only got tighter. It was obvious that Harry’s words threw him off, but his frustration carried him forward. “Ah yes, let’s just pop down to the shop and purchase these _UV lights_ and then plug them in at a magical home where they can’t work properly!”

Changing tactic, Harry swung his forearm up, grabbing Riddle’s hand and yanking him toward the door. “So we won’t take the electric route, but the principle still stands. We’re wizards, we’ll figure it out.”

*

The house of Newt and Tina Scamander resembled a giant, glass aviary. It was as if all the walls were windows, and pressed up against them were branches of trees stuffed inside. Harry pulled Riddle up the front path as the sun slowly set in the horizon, though Riddle had stopped fighting him on the matter. “May I have my wand back now?”

“Ron’s the one who confiscated it,” Harry told him. “He’s probably already entered it into evidence.”

Riddle sighed. “Wonderful. We’re about to confront a demon that can’t be killed, and I don’t even have a wand.”

Harry knocked on the front door, then tried the handle. Curiously, it was unlocked, though that question was quickly answered when he opened it. Aurors Berrycloth and Williamson were inside speaking with an older witch whom Harry guessed was Tina Scamander.

Williamson turned around at their intrusion. “Potter, did Robards send you? We’re already here to give the news.”

“No.” Harry slowly approached the three of them, his gaze on the witch. “Mrs. Scamander.”

“As I told the other aurors,” she said, “My husband isn’t here at present.” Close up, he could see the tear tracks on her face. Williamson and Berrycloth had come to tell the Scamanders about Theseus’ death.

“I’m actually here to speak with you, ma’am.”

“Who’s that?” Berrycloth said behind him, doubtlessly referring to Riddle.

“He’s with me,” Harry responded, his gaze still fixed on Mrs. Scamander. “He’s consulting on this case. How much do you know about your brother-in-law’s death?”

She looked taken aback at the question. “They said he’d been murdered.”

“He was killed by a headless axeman. I was there.” He watched as a true and knowing fear filled her features. “I believe that the killer may be about to target you next.”

“Potter!” It was Williamson this time. “Details of the case are not to be released to the public!”

Harry and Mrs. Scamander ignored him. “So it’s come,” she murmured. And then, a little louder, “We always knew this was a possibility. Dumbledore had hoped to hold this day off long enough to find a permanent solution, but he had plans for if it came early.”

It was the best news Harry had heard all day. “So, what’s the plan?”

Her frown grew deeper. “There was an assumption that Dumbledore would be here to enact it.” Which Harry translated to mean that she didn’t know. “Is that Tom Riddle?” She gestured toward the door with her chin.

“Yes, ma’am,” Riddle said, stepping closer to Harry, his shoulder brushing up against Harry’s back.

“Alright, let’s go up to the study. There might be something useful in my old notes.” She spun around, leading the way.

“Might be something useful?” Berrycloth asked. “If the axeman is on its way, we need to leave.”

“You can leave if you want to,” Mrs. Scamander replied. “If _I_ leave, he will only follow. And there is something I have locked away in this house that he must never get.”

Beside him, Riddle hummed, thinking. “What might that be?”

“His head.”

She led them up a winding, iron staircase. Around them, Harry watched creatures scurry away into the shadows, as if they could sense what was coming. A pixie took flight from a branch, heading up toward the top of the house. The other two aurors had followed. The lack of plan made this all seem like a bad idea, but at the end of the day, they were aurors. It was their job.

The corridor floors were also made of iron, clanging under their feet on the way to the study. Wooden walls, painted white, separated a few more private rooms from the large, open space of the rest of the structure. It reminded Harry unnervingly of the reptile house of his youth, though he imagined this place was probably a good deal happier.

The study was not cut off with white walls, instead it was made of the same transparent glass as the main part of the house. The door swung open as Mrs. Scamander approached. There was a desk in the center, toward the back, and bookcases to the left and right. They were tall enough to reach the ceiling, affording the only sense of privacy in the room. Mrs. Scamander walked to the bookcases on the right, pulling a dark blue tome from one of the shelves.

The sense of complete openness - the apparent lack of secrets - was shattered. Books slid out, shifted down, as if unbothered by the concept of shelves. In their wake was a dark, wooden cabinet. She opened it, pulling out several notebooks, which she levitated to the desk. Lastly, she reached down, pulling out a large, glass and metal container. It could almost have been a lantern, except that at the center of it was a skull. This she place in front of the desk, so that it wouldn’t be so visible to the outside.

Riddle knelt down in front of it. “So much power,” he whispered to himself, but it was loud enough for Harry to hear. “Imagine being able to defy death to such an extent.”

Mrs. Scamander heard him as well. “It’s because he _is_ Death.” She said it casually, her eyes fixed on the pages she was skimming through. Harry joined her by the desk. “Grindelwald had intended to gather all three Deathly Hallows and then summon him, knowing that if he controlled Death, he controlled the outcome of the war. But when Dumbledore joined the efforts against him in 1945, he became desperate. He had only the wand - enough to summon Death, but not enough to control him - he took his chances. We suspect he may have made some sort of deal with Death, but we were never able to confirm it. Grindelwald refuses to speak on the matter.” She tossed one of the notebooks aside, grabbing another one. “There must be something in here. The amount of magic we had to find and learn then. Death brought demons with him, not indestructible, but powerful, vicious. Here,” she paused on a page. “This is a ritual to trap a demon.” She frowned again as her eyes scanned the page. “It’s not powerful enough. Even without his head, he hasn’t been weakened to the extent that this would be effective.”

“His biggest weakness is sunlight,” Harry thought aloud.

“That’s nine hours away, at least,” Riddle said, standing up. He strode closer to the window which made up the entire back wall of the office. “And we don’t have that kind of time. He’s here.”

Sure enough, there was a pale streak moving quickly through the grounds, approaching the house. Harry realized it was a white horse, and atop it was the headless axeman. He shifted his gaze up to the moon, nearly full and oh so bright. “I have an idea. What part of this house has no solid walls at all? Is exposed to the world on every side?”

“The attic,” Mrs. Scamander told him.

“Good,” he said. “Lead the way, and bring the ritual.”

*

Harry crouched down behind a table in the attic. The room was typically used for those creatures that preferred great heights, but they had all been quickly evacuated. At this point, Williamson’s patronus had likely reached the Auror Office. The timing had to be exact; there could be nothing to give them away in the headless axeman’s presence.

The silence was nearly absolute as he held his wand at the ready. He glanced at the skull in its odd, lantern-like cage, sitting by the glass wall opposite the attic trapdoor, and a calm fell over him. Further across the room, he could see Riddle sitting in wait.

A loud clang rang throughout the attic, and Harry tensed, ready to move. It vibrated across the iron floor, coming from just below the attic entrance. They hadn’t even heard him move through the house. Williamson peeked up from the entrance, his face stricken with fear, frozen in it. Harry waited for him to speak, to finish climbing, to move, but he didn’t do anything. His head tilted forward, forward, forward, rolling across the floor, his neck still visible at the entrance, red and cauterized. The rest of his body was tossed up into the room as the headless axeman climbed up and into the attic, his axe glowing red as if it had been freshly thrust into a furnace.

He strode into the room, heading for the skull. Harry sprung up and jumped into his path. Pointing his wand at the table he’d been hiding behind, he flung it at the axeman. It broke across his torso, stalling him only for a few seconds. In return, the axeman brought the hilt of his axe down into Harry’s hand, knocking the wand from out of his grasp. He could hear his wand tumble away as the axe swung up, only to come hurtling down toward his head.

“ _Protego!”_ Riddle was in front of him, his hand out, the magical shield forming instantly in front of them. The axe crashed into it, shattering it, as Riddle pushed Harry back across the room.

Harry grabbed Riddle’s hand, pulling him out of the way. He dove for his wand, watching the axeman stride through the room, nearing the skull. “Now!” he shouted as his fingers gripped the cool wood of his wand.

 _“Revelio._ ” Mrs. Scamander stepped out from the shadows, her wand pointed at the floor. The chalk pattern, unbroken, began to appear below the axeman’s feet. A star within a star, symbols drawn throughout ever nook, all dimly illuminated by the moonlight.

Harry aimed his wand at the beams of moonlight. “ _Solem Maxima!”_ They were typically both modifiers, but half of magic was the right materials; the other half was intention. He had both.

The beams of moonlight grew bright, so intense they were nearly blinding. The axeman fell to his knees at the center of the trap Mrs. Scamander had drawn, his axe dropping beside him. Smoke sizzled from his flesh, as if it burned slowly. She stepped behind him, pointing her wand. “ _Incarcerous.”_ Ropes shot out, binding his arms and torso.

Harry glanced down at the headless body of Williamson, the head a meter away. They’d have to tell his family.

There was a clanging below them, and Robards climbed up to the attic, his eyes drawn immediately to Williamson’s body as well. “Damn,” he muttered under his breath. He focused his intention on the prison of light at the center of the room, the prisoner struggling weakly within his bonds. “It’ll hold?”

“As long as there’s sun or moonlight to feed the spell.” Harry replied. “So, at least until the next new moon.”

“Good.” Robards took in the rest of the room - the skull, Riddle, Mrs. Scamander, alive and unharmed. It was as close to a victory as they were going to get. He turned back to Harry. “You disobeyed a direct order.”

“Sir, Riddle was not involved in either of the murders. He helped capture the axeman tonight.”

“Which _might_ be just enough to save your career. I’ll assign some aurors to take shifts guarding this room. Riddle, come with me.” He climbed back down into the room below, and Riddle reluctantly followed.

Harry turned to follow as well when he heard Mrs. Scamander call out, “Auror Potter.” He turned around to face her, listening. “Tom Riddle. You can’t trust him.”

“What do you mean?”

“Dumbledore chose him for the ritual.”

Harry nodded, remembering the journal entry. “He wrote that Riddle would be useful in the case that the axeman rose again.”

“But that’s the thing. Dumbledore didn’t choose him only because the odds were that Riddle would be an advantage against Death in the future. He chose him because he knew that the world would fare better if Riddle were taken off the board, for however long it would last.”

Harry remembered what Riddle had said about the Dark Arts earlier, and his own suspicions about it all. “Thank you for the warning,” he said stiffly.

Back in the foyer, Riddle waited for him. “Robards is going to have my wand returned to me.”

“Apparently, you didn’t even need it,” Harry smiled. “You didn’t tell me you could do wandless magic.”

Riddle returned his smile, and it made his whole countenance seem welcoming. “You didn’t ask.”

“Thank you for saving my life, Mr. Riddle. I don’t know why, but I honestly didn’t expect it,” he admitted.

“You’re welcome. I have a hunch, you know.”

“A hunch about what?”

“About you. I think we’re not quite as different as I might have assumed at first. And please, call me Tom.”

“Only if you call me Harry.”

Riddle’s smile grew, and something about him seemed slightly less welcoming. “Gladly, _Harry.”_ His hand brushed down Harry’s arm, light enough to almost not be deliberate. _“_ There’s still a missing piece; I’m sure you’ve thought of it already.”

Harry nodded. “You woke up this morning because the axeman woke up this morning. Someone raised him from his sleep.”

*

After settling Riddle into a room at the Leaky Cauldron, wand and all, Harry returned to his flat. The chalkboard was still out – so many questions answered, so many new questions rising in their wake. In the center were Dumbledore’s files, journals and papers scattered all over the floor.

He picked up the piece of chalk, and wrote ‘Unknown - raised the axeman’. Then, with Mrs. Scamander’s words rolling back and forth through his mind, he turned to Dumbledore’s files.

Sorting through the ‘R’s, he found the file on Tom Marvolo Riddle. It was thicker than many of the other files. In it was a muggle newspaper clipping detailing the mysterious deaths of the Riddle family in Little Hangleton. Dumbledore had circled the words ‘no clear cause of death’.

Harry set the file down, reaching for the 1951 journal. He flipped past the page they had last read, turning to Dumbledore’s description of the result. _With Tom asleep, and Death with him, I have hope we might now be able to protect the world from two dark lords._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know lumos solem is only in the first film, and not any of the books, but i really needed a spell for sunlight.  
> writing this whole thing has been so wild. i couldn't write at all for months, and then i wrote this whole chapter in a weekend. it feels a little rushed to me, but it was so much fun to write. a lot of this first chapter is setting things into motion; i can't wait to spend more time on the relationship between tom & harry, now that they know each other.


	2. the approaching cold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry's latest demonic case hits a little too close to home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please note the warning tag on this fic. it hasn't changed or anything, but i wanted to remind everyone that it's there for a reason.

_The first sensation to enter the black was softness. For a second, for_ only _a second, Tom was at ease in the soft, solid embrace. In the next moment, upon taking a breath, the softness fell into his nose, and he coughed. His arms, lifting on instinct, failed as they were met with resistance. His eyes opened and immediately shut at the first sensation of something falling into them. Panic set in. His short fingernails scratched and scrambled through the weight holding them down; soil fell between them, for that was what the softness was, he realized._

_As the soil softened, his arms reaching ever higher, his body struggling to rise with them, one of his hands broke through to the air, a chilly breeze wrapping around it. He grabbed hold of the ground to pull himself up, his other hand finally joining the first on the surface. The weight above his head lessened as the darkness gave way for a soft, autumn light, filtering in through the thick foliage around him. Coughing, he renewed his attempts at breathing, and his lungs filled with relief._

_He collapsed on the ground beside his now empty grave, staring up at the trees with a sense of familiarity. He was awake._

*

The warmth of the restaurant lights was in stark contrast to the quickly dropping temperature outside. The tables inside were crowded with friends, couples, families momentarily escaping the chill. Through the windows, Harry could just barely make out the ever more crowded streets of Diagon Alley. It was a different kind of crowded from August. The streets weren’t filled with nervous eleven-year-olds or excited teenagers, they were filled with witches and wizards of all ages, leaning toward the older generations. Yule was still some time away, but it was a pre-Yule rush nonetheless.

Not the festive kind of rush, not really, despite the joyful appearance. It was a rush borne from knowing that the days were getting shorter, that the nights were getting colder.

Laughter pulled Harry from his thoughts, and he glanced across the table as Hermione tossed her head back, her smile wide. He smiled along, though he had missed the joke.

“What about you, Harry?” Ron asked from beside him.

“What?” Harry blurted, unthinking.

Luna took a sip of her drink, smiling. “Harry has been elsewhere for a while now.”

“Thinking about work,” Ginny jested, elbowing Luna. Harry remembered her yelling that at him once, her face covered in tears. At least now she could joke about it; that had to be a good thing.

Ron nodded. “Understandable. We had quite the case recently.”

“Yes, so you’ve mentioned, Ronald.” Hermione’s words sounded _almost_ scolding, her cheer still very much present. “Are you ever going to inform us about this ‘fascinating case’ you’ve had?”

“You know we can’t. Honestly, Hermione, from you of all people. Wanting us to break the rules.” Ron hid his smile behind his drink.

Harry tapped his fork across his empty plate. Ron was right. They hadn’t been forced to take any vows, thankfully, but they were forbidden from speaking about it with anyone. Umbridge nearly had a meltdown when she learned that she couldn’t broadcast the successful arrest of Dumbledore’s murderer to the whole nation. Robards insisted that the investigation was ongoing, but he wasn’t sure how long he’d be able to hold her off. He had ordered them to keep quiet about it, and to hold of on sharing any of the facts with other branches of the Ministry.

For once, it was an order that none of them felt any strong desire to ignore. It was a situation beyond their understanding of the magical world, and needed to be handled delicately.

“Harry’s gone again,” Ginny announced, startling him back to the present once more.

“Sorry, but uh, Ron’s right. We can’t talk about it.” He glanced out the window again and saw a familiar profile, just as it was swallowed up by the crowd. Harry was on his feet without deciding to do so. He tossed some money on the table. “Um, I’ll catch up with you guys later, I’ve got to go.” Coat in hand, he raced toward the door. It opened, a couple stepping into the restaurant, and he darted around them before it closed again.

Outside, the ice crunched under his feet. There hadn’t been much snow yet, just enough to thaw, muddy, in the streets. He took off down the road in the direction he’d seen Riddle. _Tom_. He’d asked Harry to call him Tom.

Harry spotted him several meters ahead, and picked up his pace. Tom appeared to be speaking with someone, and Harry caught a glimpse of blond hair just as whoever it was walked away, and Tom turned, catching sight of Harry. His eyes lit up at Harry’s approach.

“Who was that?” Harry asked. While suspicion rose naturally in him, he shoved it aside; it wouldn’t be a bad thing for Tom to make acquaintances in the 21st century, considering he would likely never go home to his own time.

Tom shook his head, “Just someone trying to sell me something. Comforting in a way, to see what _hasn’t_ changed.” His gaze moved about Harry, taking him in. “Why are you out here this evening?”

“I might ask you the same thing.”

“You _might_ , but I asked first.”

Harry sighed, though there wasn’t any real annoyance in it. “I was out with some friends.” He pointed back in the direction of the restaurant.

Tom’s eyes flicked up as he followed the gesture. “And _I_ was going for a walk. As generous as it was for the ministry to provide me with a room, it’s not exactly the most interesting place to spend my time. Why are you out here if your friends are back there?”

“Well, I saw you.”

“And?” One of his eyebrows rose.

“Uh. Well.” Why _did_ he leave the restaurant? “Would you like to join us?” He resolutely shoved his hands into his coat pockets.

Tom smiled softly down at him. “That’s very kind of you. Perhaps next time.”

“Oh. That’s fine.” Harry shrugged and then admitted, “I was headed home actually.” He nodded and stepped past Tom, walking in the direction of his flat and refusing to look back at the embarrassing situation.

To his surprise, Tom fell into step beside him. “It’s odd being here. This street is just as busy this time of year now as it was fifty years ago, maybe more so.” It seemed as though Tom meant to say more, but he didn’t.

Harry, maybe, didn’t need him to. He could still hear how the observation would end. _But I feel alone_. He knew that feeling well. “You’re at the Leaky Cauldron, right?” It wasn’t a real question; he already knew the answer.

“I am.” The Leaky Cauldron was in the opposite direction, but Tom showed no sign of turning around. “It’s… clean.”

Harry held back a laugh. “Where did you live before?”

Tom half turned without missing a step, pointing back and to the right. “I had a small flat in Knockturn Alley. More of a room, really. Borgin and Burkes didn’t pay particularly well.”

Harry turned onto Limin Alley, and still Tom followed. “Why did you work there? If you don’t mind me asking.”

“I don’t mind. At Hogwarts, my goal had been to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts. You already know how that worked out.” Tom paused, and Harry nodded both in response and to indicate for him to continue. “Working in the safe handling of dark objects is one way to gain experience, and I found it interesting. I told you I had an academic interest. But there’s also the simple fact that only so many places would hire me.”

Harry glanced up at him. “What do you mean?”

“You’re aware of my blood status.” Harry nodded. Dumbledore’s file from his school days said ‘unknown’, but the Ministry records had him listed as a half blood, same as him. “Well that, along with my muggle name, didn’t exactly open doors.”

Harry thought of Hermione, who had neither blood nor name but was going to be Minister one day. “It’s not like that anymore.”

“It isn’t?” Tom didn’t sound like he really believed it. “That’s good to hear.”

Harry stopped in front of the steps to his building, and spun to face Tom. Tom merely looked back at him, but there was a glint in his eye, like something he couldn’t quite hide. And it was something that Harry couldn’t quite name. He thought on what he knew about him - what had been shared freely, and what Dumbledore had written in locked away journals. “Would you like to come up?”

The glint grew as a corner of Tom’s mouth rose. “I would.”

Harry nodded stiffly and turned to lead the way up to his flat. It wasn’t that long ago that he’d taken Tom here in handcuffs and against orders. Inside, the lights flickered to life, casting a soft, amber glow over the room.

“I see the files have found a more permanent place,” Tom pointed out. They had; they were currently placed against one wall of the living room, as if that was where they were meant to be. For now, they were, with official, albeit _secret_ permission from Robards. “I assume that means there’s an official investigation now.”

Harry weighed the risks of letting Tom in on the truth, but it was pointless, really. Tom was always going to have to be brought in on the investigation one way or another. He was too central to it to keep him out. “There is. I’m heading it.” It wasn’t untrue, though it would have been more honest to admit that he was investigating on his own.

“Wouldn’t a case like this be handed over to the Department of Mysteries?” Tom sat gracefully down on the sofa.

“It would,” Harry admitted, sitting down beside him. “But Robards wants to keep this under wraps for now. There’s too much at stake here. It’s not just the parts of our own history that have been kept secret, or knowledge that’s challenging our understanding of magic, there’s also the simple fact of someone having woken our headless friend, and we don’t know who that is. Could be an Unspeakable, could be someone else higher up. Might not. We’re concerned that if we handed it over, we wouldn’t hear about it again, and the investigation would effectively be over.” Harry had wondered often over recent days whether the Department of Mysteries already knew about some of this, but had simply refrained from sharing with the public.

As if Tom could read his thoughts, he muttered, “The Ministry hides much, I imagine.”

Harry’s hand lifted reflexively to tap Tom on the arm in agreement, but he fortunately caught himself halfway through the action, and dropped it, standing once more. “Would you like some tea?”

Tom nodded and stood to follow.

The kitchen was small, with an even tinier nook for dining. The walls were all some beige color they’d been since he’d moved in, made browner in the dim light. The dining nook, full of hanging plants for potion ingredients, had a small, round table with two chairs. Whenever Ron and Hermione both visited at the same time, they dragged in an old armchair from the living room. A thin, practically transparent, white curtain hung over the window, obscuring the view of the street below. It wasn’t much, but it was home, and Harry loved it for that.

He flicked his want at the kettle, filling it with water, and turning on the heat. From a cabinet, he pulled down a tea pot and two cups. The tea was kept in a free-standing cabinet in the corner by the window that he’d gotten a few years ago second hand. Tin retrieved, he measured a tablespoon of leaves into a strainer, and popped it into the pot.

“Mrs. Scamander gave us the rest of her notes, but I haven’t gotten much closer to figuring it all out,” Harry admitted.

“How Death can be a person locked in her attic, or who woke him up?”

“Both, to be honest, but more the first one in this case.”

Tom glanced down at the windowsill as he thought, leaning against the wall. “She said that Grindelwald summoned him. Summoning is a form of blood magic, typically.”

“Should I even ask how you know that?”

Tom smiled at him as if they shared some private joke, and Harry’s heart sped up. “I’ve never summoned anything before, if that’s what you’re asking. Whatever’s summoned has more power in the transaction than I’m comfortable with.”

“As if that’s the only reason not to summon a demon,” Harry muttered, and Tom’s smile grew. The kettle began a soft whistle, and Harry lifted it from the tiny stove.

Tom continued as if there had been no interruptions. “Blood magic can be used to make the intangible into something tangible. Blood can work as a beacon to call something to you, and as a representation of the living form.” Magic was half materials, half intention. “I don’t know for sure, but my guess is that whoever woke us both up did so through blood magic as well. They wouldn’t need to do a full summons, especially not if they had access to the runes that Grindelwald used to summon him in the first place.”

Harry filled the pot with boiling water and set it, as well as the two cups, on the table, and they each took a seat. “So it couldn’t just be any Grindelwald fanatic, it would have to be someone with access to Grindelwald’s records, or to the man himself. But I already checked the visitor logs, and he hasn’t had any visitors recently.”

“Can’t you ask him yourself?”

He shook his head. “Not if we’re still trying to keep this under wraps. You have to go through official channels to request a visit, so not only would the Ministry have to know, but if word got out that Grindelwald was being questioned in the investigation for two murders on British soil, it could become an international political nightmare.” He poured tea into both of their cups as he thought. Tom was supposedly here for a reason, he was an asset. “Please, can you explain summoning a bit more?”

“Of course,” Tom nodded. “Like I said, it’s a form of blood magic. The two basic components are blood and runes. There are books that are bought and traded for high prices - very high - that might be useful for it. Not that I think summoning is happening at some regular frequency, but a lot of old families pride themselves on having dark texts they’d never put to practical use. The theory is, if you get the right kind of book, it will contain the identifying runes for certain demons. Admittedly, I’d never heard of a book containing Death’s runes before.”

“I thought you said they’d need to know the runes Grindelwald used. Wouldn’t they just need the book, then?”

“No, see, finding a demon’s identifying runes is only the first step. You still have to use the correct runes for summoning. But magic is about intention. Runes are language, and everyone has their own literacy, their own unique ways of understanding and relating to the world around them. Sure, you can use well known runic spells and combinations for basic tasks, but for something as complicated as summoning? You’d have to write the combination yourself.”

Harry took a sip of his tea, the warmth running through him. “I never took Ancient Runes at Hogwarts. Hermione’s textbooks always looked so complicated.”

“That’s because the class is primarily theoretic. You have to learn runic languages before you can use them. I don’t know who teaches it now, but the professor in my time also argued that it was entirely necessary to understand the history and mechanics of it as well.”

“Is it?”

Tom shrugged. “Maybe not, but I wasn’t one to complain.”

 _Nerd_ , Harry thought, and battled away a feeling too much like fondness.

“I’m not saying I’m correct,” Tom continued in a way that suggested he was, in fact, correct, “but my theory is that once Death was summoned, he became bound to those runes. Or rather, those runes are what have kept him bound to this plane. Calling him on earth wouldn’t be the same as summoning him from somewhere else because he’s _already here_ , so they’d have to use the runes that bound him here.”

Harry thought about it a moment, trying to follow how all the pieces fit together. “Once something is made tangible by blood magic, it has to abide by a more solid set of laws.”

“Precisely.”

“I wonder if we could banish Death that way.”

“It’s possible.” His eyes glanced down at the table as he thought, fingers unconsciously clenching around the handle of the teacup. “We’d have to find Grindelwald’s runes first.”

“How do you know about all this?” Harry asked, and added to his question before Tom could give the dismissive answer Harry already saw coming, “and I know you’ve said you learned it through work. But no one learns this much, this deeply about a subject if they only learned it for work and didn’t care for it otherwise.”

Tom took a sip of his tea before setting the cup down carefully. “I love magic. I always have.”

As their conversation continued, Harry hardly noticed the hours ticking away, well into the night.

*

Harry barely made five steps into the Auror department before Robards called him over. As soon as he entered Robards’ office, Robards motioned for him to close the door. “Potter, I have a case for you. It may be connected to your investigation.”

“The horseman?” He really hoped their primary demon was still secure.

Robards shook his head. “No, but it might be another demon. A couple of aurors dropped by in the early hours this morning, but I need you to lead on this one, just in case it is. We can’t have news of demons spreading to the public. Preferably, we never will, but at the very least, this needs to be kept quiet until we have a better handle on it.”

“What makes you think this might be a demon?” Harry asked just as Robards took up a file from his desk and handed it over.

“It’s officially filed as a creature attack, but the neighbors claimed it was a monster they’d never seen before.”

Harry opened the file and flipped quickly through it. Two parents and their young child had been killed, the house severely damaged. “I’ll need to reinterview the neighbors. This kind of violence would have been loud and likely lasted for at least several minutes.” His eyes lingered over the details of deep gouges in one of the door frames. “Permission to bring Riddle as a consultant? He has a greater understanding of demons than anyone here.”

Robards’ face was blank. “That’s what concerns me. Do you trust him?”

Did he? “Yes, sir.” He hoped he could.

He headed back out into the bullpen, and made his way to his desk. Ron was sitting at his own desk, right next to Harry’s. “I’ve got a possible horseman-related case, you coming?”

Ron shook his head. “Robards assigned me a decapitation case this morning.”

“Wait, what? Another one?” The horseman was supposedly still trapped.

Ron, of course, knew exactly what Harry was thinking about. “Unrelated,” he assured. “There were no signs of the wound being cauterized.”

“Is decapitation becoming a trend, then?” It was a horrifying possibility to consider.

*

With the sun shining down on the flower garden, the scene should have been peaceful. It would have been, too, as long as Harry didn’t look at the house.

He could feel Tom behind him, hear his footsteps as he kept close. The house was in shambles. One of the front-facing windows wasn’t just broken, it was gone. The front door was cracked in half, giving a preview of the inside, where Harry could see deep gouges in the wall, and blood splatter on the floor.

“Tom.” Harry spun to face him, sparing himself the sight of the house just a moment longer. “You’re here to help me understand the demonic side of this case, but you don’t have to come inside. This isn’t part of your job, it isn’t something anyone should ask of you.”

Tom grasped Harry’s shoulders. “Thank you, but I’ll be alright.” His eyes flicked up at the house. “You’re right, I’ve never been in a situation like this, but I’ve handled a lot of dark things, and I am here to help you.”

Harry nodded, facing the house once more. “Okay, but if you need to excuse yourself, at any point, you can do so.” He waved his wand at the door, carefully moving it aside, and led them over the threshold.

A woman, barely older than Harry, was lying on the ground in a pool of blood. He pulled out his notepad and quill. “Mary Hall, 29. Cause of death appears to be lacerations to the throat and stomach.” He glanced around the room. Chairs and sofa cushions torn through, framed portraits knocked to the floor, the dining table was a mess of wood. There was another body in the middle of the mess that had been the dining table. Harry didn’t step any closer to it, just looked at it from where he stood. He’d look closer in a minute. He would. “Clarence Hall, 29 as well. He appears to have been partially eaten. His left leg is no longer attached to his body, may still be somewhere in this room, although I don’t expect we’ll find it. Parts of his upper torso are gone as well.”

“Harry,” Tom said softly from somewhere behind him. Harry knew what he’d found, he’d read the notes from the aurors that had been first on the scene.

“Jack Hall, their son, aged 4.” He finally turned to where Tom was standing. A child’s legs could be seen from behind a cabinet that had been pushed away from the wall. There was something very wrong about this, something very familiar. The cabinet was a few feet from the mother’s body. “It is my hypothesis that Mary Hall died trying to protect her child.” He glanced back at the front door. “I want to speak with the neighbors.”

Though he couldn’t see Tom, he could imagine one of his eyebrows raising. “Already? Are you sure?”

Harry nodded and headed for the door. “Something about this is bothering me; I need to know what they saw.”

He led them both back out into the sun. Manners would require him to go back down the path and around the garden to the other house, but Harry wasn’t in the mood to be polite. He cut across the garden, stepping over the shrubs and trying not to crush anything. Tom may have laughed quietly behind him, he wasn’t sure. It was quicker, though, and in second he was knocking on the door of the neighbors’ house.

After a moment of silence, he knocked again. A brunette woman, likely mid-40s, answered the door. She looked scared. “Hello?”

“Hello, thank you for your time,” Harry greeted. “I am Auror Potter, this is Mr. Riddle.” He gestured to Tom who was standing beside him, their shoulders pressed together. “I understand that you witnessed what happened last night?”

Her eyes began to water, but she nodded meekly. “Yes, I told the other aurors. My husband and I were woken up by the screaming. It was dark. By the time we reached the window, it was almost over.”

“And you told the other aurors you saw it as it ran away? Please, describe it again for me.”

“Like I said, it was dark, but,” her gaze flitted across the ground as she thought, her hand tightening on the door. “It was like an animal, but one I’ve never seen before. The size of a large dog, but it wasn’t a dog. It had four legs, they were thick, and moved like it could bound across a field in a second. Like any one of those legs could grab you. The whole beast was wide.”

The description matched what was already in the notes, but there was one thing he still needed to know. “And what did it sound like?”

There was no description of its sound in the notes, but at the widening of her eyes, he knew he’d asked the right question. The aurors earlier hadn’t thought to ask, and she hadn’t volunteered the information. “It sounded like. It was.” She began trembling. “It was high-pitched. Like it was laughing.” Her gaze returned to his face, questioning, as if he could explain it all away for her.

Harry’s breath froze. He was barely conscious of thanking her for her time, like he was watching someone else do it, and he walked away from her house. Was he stumbling? No, no, he was walking. Walking like a normal person doing their job. At the end of the path, he stopped, and somehow he still managed to stand, though he could feel himself swaying slightly.

Tom caught up to him, grabbing his shoulder and chest to hold him up. “Harry! Harry, what’s wrong? What just happened back there?”

“The demon,” Harry told him, though he couldn’t see him. All he could see was splintered wood and bloody limbs. “It’s the monster that killed my parents.”

*

Harry was sitting on the sofa in his flat, bundled in a blanket, while Tom knelt down in front of him. How was he home? He didn’t remember getting home.

“How do you know that it’s the same demon?” Tom asked, his face soft. Maybe Tom apparated them here.

He clutched the blanket tighter around himself. “The scene. The family, the destruction, the manner of the deaths, my mom-” Swallowing, Harry tried to breathe. “They said that I was making it up, that I was too young. My mind did what it had to cope. I concocted a monster to make sense of a horrible situation. They told me that my parents were killed by another wizard. Arrested my godfather for it. But I knew he didn’t do it, even if they were right about me, that I was crazy, I knew he didn’t do it. Took his attorney almost ten years to prove his innocence.”

Hands cupped his face, and Harry looked up into Tom’s eyes. Up close, he could see an almost red tone to the brown. “The monster, Harry, what do you remember about it?”

“It was big.” He leaned into the hands a little, seeking their safety. “It was dark and vicious, like a dog that wasn’t a dog. Instead of paws, it had clawed hands. And I remember it made a sound like laughter. That was the worst part.”

“That does sound like our demon.” His thumb swiped along Harry’s cheekbone, just below the eye, but he kept his hands in place. “And this was around twenty years ago?” Harry nodded, feeling Tom’s palms along his face. “Why would it stay quiet for twenty years?”

It was a good question. Harry would be the first to admit that he didn’t know all that much about demons, but it still seemed strange for one this vicious to go two decades without any violence. There were any number of reasons for the gap, but if there was one thing Harry did know, it was investigating mysteries. The simplest answer was often the right one. “Maybe it didn’t.”

“Have you heard of any similar cases?”

“No.” Harry stood up, dislodging Tom’s hands. He dropped the blanket and retrieved his cloak. “And Robards would have flagged any this morning if he had records of them.” He would, right? He didn’t mention its similarity to Harry’s case. Should Harry tell him? If he did, Robards would likely take him off the case. “But Robards would only know of cases in wizarding society, and I bet that demons don’t pay any attention to political borders.”

Tom’s face lit up as he followed Harry’s line of thought. “Houses, families, why would it matter if they had magic or not? There would be nothing to keep it from attacking muggles.”

“Come on,” Harry beckoned. “It’s time we dropped by the Ministry.”

*

Hermione wasn’t looking at him. Instead, she was looking with a blank expression at the tall form of Tom leaning against the wall behind him. They were in her private office within the Muggle Liaison Office. It was a small room, but Harry was still impressed that she had her own private office at all. He and Ron only had desks in the open space of the bullpen.

Harry sat up straight in his seat, glancing back at Tom while he gestured at Hermione. “Tom, this is Hermione Granger. Smartest witch in my year, champion of muggle liaison reform, and sure to be the youngest Minster for Magic in history.” Hermione’s blank expression melted into a weak smile. “Hermione, this is Tom Riddle, he’s from 1951.”

“Wait,” her eyes narrowed, attention never wavering from Tom’s face. “Born in 1951?” Even with how young he looked, it would be the most logical explanation.

“No,” Tom answered, his careful, considerate tone belied by amusement. “As in I recently went to sleep in 1951, and woke up in 2004.”

Hermione leaned back in her chair as she processed the information. Finally, she turned to Harry. “Is this what you and Ron couldn’t talk about?”

Harry nodded. “Part of it, anyway. Tom and I need your help.”

Interest spilled, unguarded, into her features. “Is this about time travel? You’re trying to figure out how he got here, or how to send him back?”

Tom was the one to respond. “We already figured out how I got here, and unfortunately, there won’t be a way to send me back.”

Hermione nodded, taking everything in casually, as if this were a conversation she was used to having. “The paradoxes alone would be difficult to account for.”

Harry shook his head, fighting back a smile. “What we need your help with is an investigation that he’s consulting with me on. I can’t tell you much about it, for now,” he considered changing that soon; it would be good to have her on his side in this, “but I can tell you that it involves a dangerous creature. Tom and I have an hypothesis that it may not have only affected the magical world.”

“You think it’s been preying on muggles, as well.” She silently summoned a quill and sheet of paper. “What am I looking for?”

“Unsolved murders. The victims would be young families, one child for sure, likely under the age of ten. Younger, even, maybe. Damage to the home would be extensive, the murders themselves would be quite savage. Partially eaten bodies are a possibility, as are potential survivors. Any witnesses who claimed to have seen a large animal, or heard laughter, would be a plus.”

Hermione lowered her quill. “That sounds like—”

“I can’t tell you about it,” he interrupted. “Not yet.”

She nodded, standing. “I’ve been forging connections with people in the muggle government; I’ll walk this to them now. They keep their records in a computer database, so it shouldn’t take too long to see if this matches any.”

Harry had a general understanding of what a computer was, though the Dursleys hadn’t owned one. Tom only frowned at the mention, clearly not knowing what it referred to, but not yet ready to ask. “Thank you, Mione, it means a lot.”

Pulling him into a hug, she whispered, “Please take care of yourself, Harry.” In response, he merely tightened the hug for a moment.

Hermione walked them to the door, heading in the opposite direction. As they made their way to the Atrium, he glanced up at Tom. “Want to get something to eat?”

For half a second, Tom seemed to pause. “I can’t actually, I have somewhere to be. I will see you tomorrow, however.” He disappeared in a flash of flames in one of the fireplaces.

It made sense, Harry thought. Tom may be separated from his life by decades, but that didn’t mean he lived at Harry’s beck and call. He still knew wizarding London, even if some things had changed; there was no need for him to be by Harry’s side all hours of the day.

*

Of the many things Harry could rely on Ron for, the one that triumphed over all the others was an invitation for food. They were holed up in Harry’s flat, eating pasta.

“You’re going to catch it, right?” Ron asked about the demon Harry suspected was responsible for the death of the young family. He didn’t know about its connection to Harry’s childhood, and for now, Harry was content to keep it that way. “Maybe even get the Beast Division involved?”

“I don’t know,” Harry admitted. “Tom theorized that whoever woke up the headless horseman was only able to do so because they had the runes that Grindelwald used to summon him in the first place. I assume the same would be true in this case. Of course, that assumes this monster was summoned by Grindelwald directly, and not like a product of everything else he was up to at that time.”

Ron’s brow rose. “Tom?” he questioned, seemingly ignoring the rest of what Harry had said. “You and Riddle are on a first name basis, now?”

Harry glanced away. “We are. It’s not that big of a deal.”

“It is if you like him,” Ron said. Harry opened his mouth to argue, but Ron continued before he could. “I’ve watched you have crushes since we were teenagers, Harry. On my sister, once, for an extended period of time.” And if that wasn’t a roundabout way of saying that they had dated. “I know the signs.”

“It isn’t like that,” Harry protested. “He’s just really easy to talk to. Oh, don’t look at me like that! How’s _your_ investigation going?”

“Mystery of the decapitated rich pureblood? Not well, just yet. We know it was a cutting curse this time. Problem is, the man had too many enemies.”

A knock on the door brought their conversation to a close. _“Harry, it’s me,”_ came muffled from the other side in Hermione’s voice. Harry waved his wand at the door to unlock it, and she quickly darted in. “I have those files you asked for. Oh, hello, Ron.” She dragged a chair into the kitchen without pausing, and sat down. There was a thin stack of files in her hand that she placed on the table between the three of them. “My friend on the muggle side found these three cases that matched your description. These are just copies, of course.” Harry reached for the first file, Ron grabbing the one beneath it, and they started flipping through as she continued. “The oldest dates back to the mid 60s. Two of the cases have no survivors and no witnesses, but were flagged for the damage to the homes and the partially eaten bodies. A little girl survived the attack from the seventies. She told authorities that her family was killed by a scary black dog that sounded like it laughed.”

Harry repressed a shudder, closing the file he’d been scanning. He glanced at the dates on the folders. “Assuming these are all the muggle cases, this thing doesn’t attack very often. Just every decade or so.”

“What is it?” Hermione asked, voice quiet.

He and Ron weren’t supposed to tell anyone, but he wanted her help on this. “It’s a demon.” He glanced up at Ron, trying to gauge his reaction. Ron only nodded in approval. “And it isn’t the first one we’ve dealt with.”

“What was the first one?”

“Well, you know that Ron and I were investigating Dumbledore’s death. And that the same murderer beheaded Theseus Scamdander, as well.” He waited, though he knew she knew exactly what he was talking about. She knew basics about what Harry and Ron had been told to keep quiet on. “That murderer also has no head.” He watched her eyes grow in a mix of surprise and confusion. “He’s headless, but he still walks around, and he carries an axe that seems to have cursed properties. Tina Scamander claims that he is Death himself.”

“Why would Death be walking around?” She asked, incredulous.

“Because Grindelwald summoned him during the war. Dumbledore had managed to take him down by binding him to Tom, and then making Tom - and therefore the both of them - sleep. That is, until, someone woke him up recently.”

Ron cleared the files from the table just as Hermione leaned forward, resting her chin in her hands, and her elbows on the table. Her eyes gazed distantly through the curtained window. “How would they go about doing that?”

“Tom’s theory is that someone managed to find Grindelwald’s summoning runes, and used them to call Death.”

“So, presumably, if you could find this person, you could use Grindelwald’s runes to call this latest demon. You could even use a mix of the original runes and your own combination to banish it.”

Harry hadn’t thought that far yet, but it was a better plan than any he’d come up with. “The trouble is, I’ve been trying to figure out which family might have ended up with Grindelwald’s possessions at the end of the war, but there are too many possibilities.”

Ron shook his head, “I don’t know how to tell you this, mate, but rich people suck.”

Hermione snorted. “Wizarding Britain does have its fair share of wealthy bigots. To think, so many people that had sided with Grindelwald during the war still have political power. Or their sons have that power.”

“So you can see my problem,” Harry said very seriously. The three of them burst into laughter.

As Hermione started to regain her breath, an idea came to her. “You said you dealt with Death; where is he now?”

“He’s trapped in a ritual circle at the Scamander residence,” Ron replied.

“And I assume his axe has been confiscated?” They both nodded. “That axe might be useful. I mean, it’s Death’s own blade! You might not need runes to banish this demon, not if the axe can successfully kill it.”

“That’s a pretty big assumption,” Harry frowned.

Ron shook his head. “It makes sense, in a way. If the headless horseman really is Death, like Scamander said, then there shouldn’t be any living thing that axe can’t kill.”

“Okay,” Harry conceded. “Let’s say that the axe is what we need to kill the demon. How do we find it? I can’t just wait ten years and then stake out every family in Britain that fits the victim profile. I still need those runes in order to call it out of hiding.”

“Unless,” Ron’s eyes fixed on him. “We can find out where it’s hiding. Ten years is a long time to go off the map, which means there has to be somewhere it can hide undisturbed for that period of time. You spoke with the most recent witness, right?”

“Yeah,” Harry nodded. “She saw it running away.”

“Did she say where?”

“No, not to me.” He stood up and walked over to the filing cabinets from Dumbledore’s office. “But I believe she told the aurors who first interviewed her.” The file was where he’d dropped it when he came in earlier - closed on top of the last cabinet. He flipped it open to the witness statement. “She said she saw it run through her neighbor’s back garden and disappear near the fence. From there, she didn’t see where it went.”

Hermione had the muggle file with the lone survivor open on the table. “The little girl saw it digging in the garden. She said that’s partly why she thought it was a dog.”

“Every house is left as a disaster,” Ron said thoughtfully, leaning back in his chair, eyes on the ceiling. “The gardens, too, I imagine.”

“What are you thinking, Ron?” Hermione asked.

His gaze moved to her face. “What if it never left?”

Harry sat back down as he thought through the implications of Ron’s words. “You think no one has seen where it runs away to because it doesn’t run away.”

Ron placed his hands flat on the table. “Exactly. It could hide in the back garden, disguised by all the damage, right in plain sight. I’ll bet if we return to the most recent house, we’ll find the ground disturbed near the back fence.”

Harry wanted to say something, but the words wouldn’t form. In the silence, he realized he wasn’t the only one. Tomorrow, they’d have to dig.

*

As soon as he got to work, Harry knocked on Robards’ office door. “Sir,” he said as Robards opened it. “I believe I have located the demon responsible for the Hall family murder. I’m requesting a few aurors as backup for when I confront it.”

“You can take Weasley, Tonks, and Shacklebolt, since they’re already in the know. I’ll come as well.” He grabbed his cloak from the back of his chair. “What’s your plan, once you confront it? Do you have a way to kill it? Capture it?”

“That’s my second request, sir,” Harry said cautiously. “We have the horseman’s axe in evidence. There’s a theory that, since it’s Death’s own blade, it should be able to kill any living thing. Plan B is to surround and capture it by means of _incarcerous_. We could even build another ritual circle like the one used to trap the horseman, as this demon shouldn’t be nearly as strong.”

“That’s a lot of speculation, Potter.”

“I understand, sir, there isn’t much we understand about this demon. Riddle will accompany us in case his knowledge proves useful. My concern is that it might relocate to a different hiding place, and that’s assuming that we’re correct about where it is now.”

Robards studied him for a moment, and Harry wondered what it was the man was looking for. “I’ll approve the use of the axe, but I will be the one to carry and use it.”

“Of course, sir,” Harry agreed. It was the most sensible course of action to take, apart from leaving the axe safely in evidence.

Robards led him back out into the bullpen. “Shacklebolt, Tonks, Weasley, with me.” His voice carried through the space without him having to raise it. Harry saw Tom standing by his desk, and motioned for him to follow. “Head to the Atrium,” Robards instructed them. “I will meet you there in five minutes.”

*

The front garden looked just as lovely and peaceful as it had the previous day. The front door just as broken. Harry led the six of them down the path and into the house. The bodies had been removed, but the rest of the damage was just as Harry and Tom had seen it. Furniture laid splintered on the ground, dishes smashed, blood smeared across the floorboards.

They stepped slowly and carefully around the wreckage. The crime scene was to remain undisturbed until the investigation was wrapped up, and with any luck, today would be that day.

The back door wasn’t cracked like the front door. Instead, the center of it was gone, like something had burst through it from the inside. They’d known from the witness statement that the demon had exited from the back of the house. Outside, the morning light filled the back garden in a soft haze. It, too, had probably been a lovely place. Harry could imagine the family sitting out here on a quiet day, eating a late breakfast. He could picture them gathered around what had once been a table, celebrating their kid’s birthday.

The back garden was indeed a mess. Some of the debris from inside had spilled out through the demolished kitchen window. Several plants had been ripped up. The primary difference between inside and out was that there weren’t any bodies or blood. Near the back left corner, Harry could see a mound of dirt. As he approached, he considered its size. It looked like a grave, but not large enough for an adult human, and not small enough for a family pet. He stood above it, staring down.

After a minute of silence, he could feel Tom drift close to his side. Ron spoke for him, when it was clear that Harry seemed to have nothing to say. “We’ll have to dig deeply. I bet that if it buried itself shallowly, it would have been found by now.”

They all pointed their wands at the mound, apart from Robards, who held the axe at the ready. They each cast their _Defodio_ silently, eyes trained on the soil as it was removed. Bit by bit, they carefully dug their way in, not wanting to go too fast or too hard. If they were lucky, Harry considered, they wouldn’t find anything at all.

As a little more dirt was removed by Tonks’ wand, he noticed what looked like the skin of a hairless animal. He turned to alert the others, but before he could open his mouth, dirt sprayed up from the earth, hitting him in the face and forcing him backward.

His back hit the ground, and he scrambled to his feet without thinking. The air was filled dust and dirt to the point that he couldn’t see any of the others.

Had the world fallen silent? He didn’t hear anything, just stared through the dust. Like the fog in every tall tale spread about the Forbidden Forrest, it birthed a monster. Its snout emerged first, lips pulled back to reveal long, sharp teeth. The eyes shown through next, a bright, glowing yellow. It stared Harry down before opening its mouth to let out a sound like a laugh. A laugh that wasn’t quite a laugh – too high, too sharp, too long.

Stumbling back, Harry wished he could look away, but he couldn’t move his gaze at all. The not-laugh, which pierced him like ice, abruptly ceased, and that was somehow worse. It lunged at him. He stumbled further back, his pace picking up just as he felt his foot land not quite right, and the world seemed to tip.

“ _Protego_!” A voice broke into his awareness. The monster hit the shield, which bounced it back slightly before shattering. Something suddenly blocked his view, and Harry looked up to see Tom, hand extended to him. “We probably shouldn’t make a habit of this.”

Harry grasped his hand and let Tom pull him back up. The rest of the sounds began to filter in again. Robards shouted orders, Tonks cast _incarcerous_. He couldn’t tell what it was that they were doing, or how well it was faring. Tom continued to watch his face, and Harry new there was something he was supposed to say, something he was supposed to do, but he didn’t know what it was.

“Harry,” Tom said far too softly for the situation. “Are you alright? Are you with us?”

Harry opened his mouth to say something, but gave up. He looked out at the scene. Most of the dust had settled, though dirt was still kicked up by the demon’s claws. Kinglsey shoved it back toward the fence with a wave of his wand. Ron yelled out, drawing its attention, and Robards ran at it with the axe raised.

The demon heard just as Robards got within reach, and swerved. The axe came down as its long, muscled hind leg moved out of the way, and the blade cut along its skin. Viscous, black liquid began to pour slowly down its leg. It swiped out with a front foot, claws catching at Robards’ chest. He fell back into the dirt with a grunt of pain, the axe falling to the ground beside him.

Harry expected the demon to go for Ron next, or Kingsley. Instead, its attention swung to him once more. Those yellow eyes stared at him, unblinking, and it took a step toward him.

“ _Bombarda_!” Tonks shouted, her wand aimed at the wound on the demon’s leg. It let out a yelp like a laugh, turned around, and leapt over the fence to escape.

Kingsley apparated with a loud snap, reappearing on the other side of the fence to chase after the demon. Tonks followed him.

With the demon gone, Harry felt like he could come back to himself. He ran to where Robards was lying on the ground. Ron was already knelt down beside him. “We have to get him to St. Mungo’s!” Ron announced, reaching to grab a hold of Robards’ torso.

Before he could, Robards grabbed his arm, holding it in place as he eyed Harry. “What happened here, Harry?” He didn’t sound happy.

Ron tried to steer his focus away. “Sir, we need to go.” Robards just shook his head, expecting an answer to his question.

“I don’t know, sir” Harry attempted to respond. “The demon just. It.” He couldn’t find the words.

“It’s the murders, Sir,” Ron explained. “They’re quite similar to his parents.” Of course Ron had noticed as well.

Understanding lit up in Robards gaze, along with a certain determination that didn’t bode well for Harry’s future on this particular case. Finally, he nodded and let Ron apparate him to St. Mungo’s.

As soon as they were gone, Harry knelt down to collect the axe. “We’ll need to take this back to evidence,” he said knowing Tom could hear him as he shrunk it down and put it in his pocket. Tom watched him curiously, but said nothing.

Kingsley and Tonks returned, breathing heavily. “It got away,” Kingsley informed them.

Harry merely nodded. “Ron took Robards to St. Mungo’s. You can meet them there, I’m going to head back to the office. We can regroup later and plan a second attempt. We’ll find this thing.”

In the wake of the pop that signaled Tonks and Kingsley’s departure, Tom turned his attention back to Harry. “You’re not going back to the office, are you?” His expression was unreadable.

Harry considered lying, but he had no idea what answer Tom was expecting or hoping for. “No, I’m not.”

“That thing remembered you.”

“Yes,” Harry confirmed. “Which is why I know how to find it.”

“How?” He looked curious; he looked like he was waiting for something.

“I don’t need the demon’s runes, or Grindelwald’s. I already have something that it wants.” Harry held up his hand, wrist and forearm displayed. “You said that blood can represent the living form. You also said that it acts as a beacon. It wants me. It wants my blood. All I have to do is lure it.”

“That’s going to be incredibly dangerous.”

“I know, but I’ll have the advantage.”

“Then you must also know,” Tom placed his hand on Harry’s shoulder, “that I am coming with you.”

They disapparated with a hushed crack.

*

Harry barely felt any pain as the knife sliced into the skin on his arm. He was careful not to cut too deeply or in the wrong place. As the blood began to pool on his arm, he rubbed it along his door frame, walked to the kitchen, and repeated the process on the windowsill. “This is so gross,” he muttered, before spinning to face Tom. “But it’s going to work.”

Tom took hold of his arm, and waved his wand over it. The wound knitted itself back together. “It will,” he finally acknowledged. “Which is why I would like to know what your plan is.”

Harry reached into his pocket and removed the axe, returning it to its normal size. “I have Death’s axe. Now I just need to get the demon in front of me long enough.”

“You froze back there,” Tom pointed out. Harry didn’t try to refute it. “I won’t pretend to understand; my parents did not die in such a way.”

“No,” Harry agreed. “Dumbledore actually implied in his notes that you killed your father.”

“Did he?” Tom’s small smile was one of amusement, like one of a shared inside joke. “The good professor never did care for me much.”

It was the closest to a confirmation that Harry was going to get, and he had to resist the reflex to step back. He couldn’t afford to alienate Tom at the moment, so the matter would have to wait until he had the time to deal with it.

“But,” Tom continued, unaware of Harry’s inner turmoil. His smile was gone. “I know. I have. You know when I’m from.” Harry nodded, waiting to see where this would go. “And where I’m from. It’s not the same, but sometimes. Sometimes I’ll be in a crowd, and I’ll hear a child shriek or something heavy fall. For a moment, just a moment, it’s like I can’t breathe.”

Harry hated the warring emotions inside himself. Two admissions, completely opposite each other, causing conflicting instincts. He gave into the second one, and stepped closer. “Tom.”

Tom shook his head and grasped Harry’s hands in his own. “Every time it happens, I do the impossible: I breathe. It’s a goal of mine, to do every impossible thing. Blood status, wealth, mortality, all impossible boundaries waiting to be crossed. That’s how I know you’ll get through this. Because I see that in you. You are like me.”

Was he? Harry wasn’t sure. Part of him wanted it to be true, but part of him was repulsed by the idea. He didn’t know which part was bigger, but if it was true, if it would get him through this, get them both through this…

When he surfaced from his thoughts, Tom was standing much closer than he had realized. It wasn’t just Dumbledore’s notes; Tom never hid his affinity for dark magic. But it was that affinity, that knowledge, that had gotten them this far. And Harry trusted him. He leaned in, praying that he wasn’t misreading their closeness.

The sound of glass cracking startled him, and he pulled back, registering the disappointment that flashed across Tom’s face. A second crack turned their attention, and there - on the other side of the window, long lines winding through it - was the glowing yellow eyes of the demon.

Its mouth opened, and the not-laugh spilled through its long, sharp teeth like some strange attempt at a cackle. With one of its front paws, claws extended, it tapped on the glass one last time. The window shattered inward, casting shards across the little dining table and kitchen floor.

The demon hopped in and landed on the table, which splintered and collapsed under its weight. Its not-laugh slid into a snarl, and it lunged at them.

“ _Impedimenta,”_ Harry cast. The demon slowed for a second as the jinx rolled through it. It gave them the chance to run back, so that the demon landed a few feet away, rather than on top of them.

Tom aimed his wand at the wound on the demon’s leg, which still slowly bled, and cast silently, cutting into it. The demon let out another sharp sound, settling its focus on Tom. As it lunged at him, Tom quickly levitated the sofa between them. It crashed into the back of the sofa, tearing through fabric and cushion.

With the axe in his left hand, Harry stowed his wand away, so he could hold the blade properly, lifting it in front of him. He could see Tom’s face revealed more and more through the hole the demon dug through the back of the sofa. And Harry couldn’t help but think about what Tom had said, had implied, about his own fears. Yet, Tom was still here.

Harry ran at the demon, axe held at the ready. The demon, hearing his footsteps, stopped digging and spun around. Its claws swiped out, cutting across Harry’s shin, and sending him tumbling to the floor. His grip tightened on the axe as he sat up to see its face inches from his, teeth bared, yellow eyes boring into his own.

He took a breath - the smell of something hot and rancid invading his senses - and brought the blade down on its injured leg. It let out another sound, less like a laugh and more like a howl.

And Harry. Harry remembered the cupboard. On hot summer days in July, when the temperature reached highs that they were never prepared for in Britain, he would lay in bed and try to breathe, his hair soaked through with sweat, the air in his lungs stale and suffocating. He remembered every nightmare that woke him up to a narrow space and a dusty ceiling. He remembered his aunt shrieking at him to shut up whenever he cried. He remembered Dudley’s laughter.

_Freak_

_Crazy_

Harry swung the axe down into the demon’s shoulder. Dark, viscous blood oozed from it, as it howled and stumbled down. He yanked it out and swung down again. The shoulder severed from the body, the leg falling to the floor. Harry didn’t stop. He brought the axe up again, and swung down hard at the demon’s neck. Thick blood splattered across his face. He hacked at it again and again until its whole body slumped, and the head landed separately with a dull thud.

Harry’s breathing was the only thing breaking up the silence as he stared down at what he had done. A few seconds passed before he heard some shuffling and Tom Riddle came into view, pulling his face up to meet his gaze. “Are you alright?”

Harry didn’t move, even as he glanced around. He felt so heavy. “This place is a wreck.”

Tom huffed out a low laugh. “I suppose it is.” He wiped some of the blood from Harry’s face before giving up and cleaning it with a wave of his wand. “Your plan was a success. What are we supposed to _do_ with it, though?”

It was a good question. “Honestly, I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I was just hoping I’d survive and it wouldn’t.” He tried to stand up, but winced and sat back down. “Um, okay, my leg does actually hurt.”

Tom scrambled back and lifted his leg. They both looked down at it, but the scratch didn’t appear to be all that deep. Tom sighed out in relief, “That should heal without issue.”

“I’m tired,” Harry admitted. “I’ll just. I’ll deal with _it_ in the morning. Let’s just put a preservation charm on it for now.” Tom leaned out of the way so Harry could do exactly that. It would hold well for a couple of days at least.

Tom stood and pulled Harry up, careful not to jostle his leg too much. They hobbled to the bedroom where Tom propped him up against the door frame and helped him out of his robes. Harry wanted to say something, to ask why, but he didn’t want to break whatever spell must have descended upon them. Once Harry’s trousers were removed, exposing his injured leg, Tom led him to sit on the bed.

“It’s deeper than the cut you made yourself earlier,” Tom explained as he retrieved his wand to quicken the healing process and bandage the leg. He then removed his outer robes, sat on the bed next to Harry, and pulled them both to lay down.

Harry didn’t know what to say about any of it, as Tom pulled the blankets over them to keep out the late autumn chill. The sheets were soft against his skin, and Tom’s hand on his arm was a comforting weight. He slipped into sleep before any words could order themselves.

*

Sunlight filled his bedroom as Harry woke up. He rolled over to see that Tom had left already. Probably returned to his room at the Leaky Cauldron.

He sat up and pushed the blankets down to see his bandaged leg. Carefully unwrapping it, he was relieved to find the wound almost entirely healed. All that was left was a faint, pink line.

Exiting the bedroom, the flat was just as much of a mess as it had been the night before, except that the demon’s body was gone. The axe wasn’t there anymore, either. Tom must have taken them into the Auror Office. Harry hoped that he had managed to check the axe back into evidence before anyone had realized how long it had been gone.

The window would need to be repaired or replaced. The dining table was probably too far gone, and would need to be replaced as well. The sofa, too. Fortunately, the filing cabinets from Dumbledore’s office were still off to the side, untouched.

The latest demon might have been handled, but Harry had yet to figure out who had Grindelwald’s books and runes, and had successfully woken Death. There were too many pureblood families that could have received them, and kept them safe at the end of the war. The dynamics between individual purebloods and their families were kept within their tight-knit circles, particularly among the Sacred Twenty-Eight.

Which meant that Harry was going to have to ask one of its members. He quickly dressed and rushed out the door. It was a long-shot if they would talk to him, but he had to try.

As soon as he was outside, he apparated, and found himself standing in front of 12 Grimmauld Place. He walked up the short steps and knocked on the door, hoping someone would answer.

The door slowly swung open, but no one was standing there. He stepped inside, making his way down the long hallway. Sirius had brought him here only a handful of times as a teenager, and the house was just as old yet well-kept as he remembered.

He reached the end of the hallway, and at the foot of the stairs stood a man who looked remarkably like Sirius. “Harry,” the man said plainly.

“Regulus,” Harry responded, feeling a little foolish. “I know that you and Sirius aren’t close, and that you don’t owe me anything, but I was hoping you’d be willing to help me with something.”

Regulus Black looked stiff and uncomfortable at the request, but said, “I suppose that would depend.”

“The Blacks have always kept meticulous records on family and other important relations.”

“Digging into family history?” Regulus asked as he motioned for Harry to follow, leading him up the stairs.

“Something like that,” Harry said. “I’m just trying to get a feel for the dynamics between all our families in the 40s and 50s.”

“During Grindelwald’s war? That was certainly an interesting time.” He opened the door to what looked like a mix between a drawing room and a study. “Britain was rather split in opinion on it. At least among pureblood families.”

Regulus walked to a bookcase in the center of a wall, and pointed at one of the shelves. Harry followed, noticing that several of them had year ranges on their spines. He grabbed a couple that covered the late-40s and early 50s, and took them to a little table next to an armchair.

A few minutes passed in silence as Harry flipped through them, before Regulus asked, “Anything in particular you’re looking for?”

“Sort of.” Harry thought about how to word it without giving away anything confidential. “I’m pretty sure the Potters weren’t involved with Grindelwald, same for the Blacks, but I’m curious which families might have been. I’ve got the feeling some of those grievances have been long-lived.”

Regulus walked up to him. “You’re not wrong about that, people do like to hold grudges.” He took the book Harry was holding, and flipped open to a specific page before handing it back. “This might help. It put a strain on the relationships between our family and theirs.”

He was right. The page was practically a list of complaints, underneath the relentlessly polite wording. The Carrows, the Rosiers, the Lestranges. There was one name written with particular vehemence. “Who was Vinda Rosier?”

Regulus didn’t answer straight away as he thought. “She was a French witch. You know, of course, that a few of the Sacred Twenty-Eight families stretch across the Channel. She was extremely loyal to Grindewald, and as she grew in power and prominence, the rest of her family followed in her footsteps.” Harry nodded as he listened. The Rosiers were still a very wealthy and prominent family. It was a good place to start. “It’s interesting that you bring up that name,” Regulus spoke again. “My uncle married a Rosier. By that time, of course, the relationship between our families had been repaired.”

Harry closed the book and stood up to put it back on the shelf. “Oh?” He said, half-listening. “What repaired it?”

“It was actually not too long after that page I showed you. One of the younger Rosier men befriended my father at school, if I remember correctly.” There was a pause as Harry placed the books back on the shelf and turned around. Regulus looked like he really was trying to remember something. “There’s not much about it in the books, just a mention here or there, but the implication is that there was another Dark Lord on the rise. A British one. And they both became involved in his campaign.”

Harry felt like ice had flooded his veins, and could only hope that none of it showed on his face. A British Dark Lord. He had gone about all of this the wrong way. _Two_ people had woken on that fateful morning.

He retrieved his wand. “ _Expecto Patronum.”_ From the tip emerged a silver stag. “Find Ron,” he told it. “And tell him I was wrong. I was so wrong. This was never about Grindelwald. It’s been about Tom this whole time.”

The patronus departed, and he faced Regulus, who looked baffled at the turn of events. “Thank you, I really owe you one. Who’s the head of the Rosier family, now? Evan Rosier, right? Where does he live?”

“The Rosier Manor in Wiltshire, not far from the Malfoys.”

The Malfoys who have blond hair, like the person he’d seen Tom talking to in Diagon Alley a few days ago. “Thank you again, I’ll see you soon.”

He ran down the stairs and past a startled house elf, dashing out onto the street and apparating to Wiltshire. He used the Malfoy Manor as a starting point, since he’d been there once before when Lucius Malfoy made the bad decision to invite Sirius to their Yule dinner party. Sirius had made a point of attending and embarrassing anyone from the Black family tree.

Families like the Malfoys and the Rosiers would never deign to live in close proximity to muggles, and so the magical residences were relatively closer together by consequence. But the sheer size of such residences meant that it was closer to twenty minutes by the time Harry was approaching what looked to be the Rosier Manor.

As he got near, he could feel the wards placed on the grounds, and knew that he wouldn’t be able to apparate in, or likely even remain undetected. So he did the next best thing: he squared his shoulders and walked up the main path to the front door. He was an auror, it was broad daylight, and Tom—

He reached the front door and knocked. When it opened, instead of a house elf or Evan Rosier, like he had expected, he saw the face of Tom Riddle.

“Harry,” Tom said, and his face gave away nothing. “You shouldn’t have come here.”

He felt a spell collide with his right shoulder blade, and the world went black.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading this far! i think i talked about this on the last chapter tags as well, but writing has been difficult for me the past couple of years. writing this, however, has been fun, and has really helped me get back into it.


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